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Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Dizzy from sniffing Alpaca Fibre

Here is the thrum slippers I was knitting with the grey thrums inside, don't know whether the light grey of the thrums will show up as grey but think of it as grey. It looks so great with the mulicolored wool. Have them finished but have not taken pictures. Have already started on another pair for Grandson #1. I have been busy sorting out some of the Alpaca fibre I bought last fall (it was still on my 2007 list) It wasn't sorted very well when it was sheared so I have to pick,pick,pick. there is one animal with grey fleece that has black guard hair right through the whole fleece and I did not count how many of his fleeces there were, so put them in a separate bag with a question mark on it. So got all the light fawn color sorted and in the bag, filled a large clear garbage bag...weighted it...it only weighted five pounds. Then sorted some light grey and filled another bag....weighted it...it only weighted seven pounds. I want the alpaca mixed with wool and mohair for sock knitting so phoned the mill and she said they need twenty pounds of a color to spin it up for me. TWENTY POUNDS!!!! Do you know how much Alpaca fibre it takes to make twenty-pounds? She said if I wanted a mix with fifty percent alpaca I could get away with ten pounds but because after they wash it it will loss about two pounds of weight I would need twelve pounds.........o.k. back to the sorting table. I will have to mix the light fawn with the darker brown and will have to mix the light grey with the darker grey. so off to sort some more! In some of the fleeces the staple is too long and the mill can not process it, they must have left the Alpacas two years before they sheared them one time and I will wash and spin that myself and some of it is too coarse and the mill will not spin that. They will make the fibre that had hair in it and the fibre that is too coarse into batts so I will get that done. I want to sew some vests and will use the batts for filling or I can use them as quilt batts. So I finally have twelve pounds of two colors to take up to the mill, and will take the two or three (depends if I get more sorted) bags up to get batts made. And do you know the sad part about this.....it will not even make a dent in the bags of unprocessed fibre I have, and also.....shearing will start again in about three months. I also sorted a large bag of mohair to go to the mill. Here I had great plans to just do nothing but spin for a bit after New Years but then I haven't caught up to the new year yet.....I am still working on the old year list. It will feel good just to get these few bags to the Mill. I forgot I already have four or five bags of Alpaca fibre to send to another mill.....so that is a few more bags that will be gone. Well resident husband is off to a meeting tonight so my big decision is should I go organize the fibre or just sit down and knit for the night??hmmm.....I think the knitting is going to win out as I really do not feel like getting into the alpaca dust tonight.

3 comments:

Hi mom - if any of that long stuff would work for doll hair maybe you could set some aside for me? Winona and I totally LOVE the colordy thrum boots! Good Job! My purple ones just aren't wearing out fast enough :)

'morning. My mills don't require nearly that much to process. Maybe the shipping would be too expensive but look at:Stonehedge - www.stonehedgefibermill.comZeilingers - http://www.zwool.comPufpaffs -http://fibermill.yurtboutique.comI minly use Pufpaffs for roving and Stonehedge for yarn.

Hi Alpaca granny, great to hear from you, I love reading your blog and love seeing pictures and hearing about your Alpacas. When I read that you had the baby doll sheep I looked up some info on them....they are so cute.....I think I need some!! Thanks for the info on the mills you use, I will check them out although I think the shipping will be too much. We have a couple of mini-mills up here that do not require that much to process but they are backed up at least six months. They have the dehairers so are great for the llama fibre. I am going to send some llama fibre to them to process. Am really looking forward to seeing baby sheep pictures!! What is their fibre like? Have you worked with it?